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Tourism in Colombia

Playa Brava in Tayrona National Natural Park

Cabo San Juan in Tayrona National Park

The contribution of travel and tourism to GDP was USD5,880.3bn (2.0% of total GDP) in 2016. Tourism generated 556,135 jobs (2.5% of total employment) in 2016.[1] Foreign tourist visits were predicted to have risen from 0.6 million in 2007 to 4 million in 2017.[2][3]Responsible tourism became a peremptory need for Colombia because minimizes negative social, economic and environmental impacts and makes positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage.[4][5]

In the early to mid-1980s, international tourism arrivals in Colombia reached nearly 1.4 million per year. Although they decreased by more than half thereafter, they have recovered at rates of more than 10 percent annually since 2002, reaching 1.9 million visitors in 2006. Tourism usually has been considered a low-growth service industry in Colombia because of internal violence, but in 2006 the country earned US$2 billion from international tourism. Tourists visiting Colombia from abroad came mainly from the United States (24.5 percent), followed by Venezuela (13.4 percent), Ecuador (9.1 percent), Spain (6.4 percent), and Mexico (4.9 percent). Approximately 90 percent of foreign tourists arrive by air, 10 percent by land transportation, and a tiny share by sea.[6]

Land and climate

Colombia is located in the North West area of the South American continent. Colombia coasts are along the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. The Andes Mountains are within the borders of Colombia, and are a popular destination for tourists to hike.[]

Along the coast and in the northern areas of the country the climate is "warm and tropical ... with a rainy season from May to November."[12] The temperature stays fairly consistent throughout the year because Colombia is so close to the equator. The variety in temperature comes from the level of altitude; it is much cooler in the higher altitudes of Colombia than the low land coastal areas.[]

Colombia is known as "the land of a thousand rhythms". Colombia has more than 1,025 folk rhythms.

Some of the main genres are:

Chandé (from Colombian Atlantic Coast). It is a cheerful and partying rhythm that is part of the coastal idiosyncrasies and carnivals. It comes from the fusion of indigenous rhythms with African black music

Bunde chocoano (from Chocó Region, Afro-Colombians learned from the Native Americans when as black slaves during colonial escaped and took refuge in remote areas and were received with hospitality by Native Americans of the Pacific coast)

Carranga The carranga , carranguera music or peasant music , is a genre of folk music originated in the Colombian Andean region , more exactly in the department of Boyacá in the years 70 , of the hand of the composer Jorge Velosa and the Carrangueros de Ráquira .In the execution of the carranguera music the guitar, the tiple, requinto-tiple, the guacharaca and the voice are used.

Champeta (The classical conception of champetuísmo has four important aspects: musical expression, its distinctive jargon, the "picós" and perreos -fiestas and verbenas-. Some give the same importance to other aspects, such as dancing, political activism, designing clothing, audiovisual aspect of its videos, and other cultural elements, of Afro-Colombian music)

Torbellino (representative songs of the departments of Boyacá, Cundinamarca and Santander, It tune of religious and family fiestas)

Vallenato (from Atlantic Coast Region, it is important to the narrative nature of love's stories or descriptions of people, it was declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Nation).

Visitors

Most visitors arriving to Colombia on short term basis in are from the following countries of nationality:[15]

National parks

Colombia has two coastlines; Pacific and Caribbean, three main mountainous chains and the isolated Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, and many different ecological regions, from páramo to tropical jungle vegetation to desert biomes. The country hosts numerous volcanoes and waterfalls.

Safety

For many years serious internal armed conflict deterred tourists from visiting Colombia, with official travel advisories warning against travel to the country. However, in recent years numbers have risen sharply, thanks to improvements in security resulting from former President Álvaro Uribe's "democratic security" strategy, which has included significant increases in military strength and police presence throughout the country and pushed rebel groups further away from the major cities, highways and tourist sites likely to attract international visitors. Foreign tourist visits were predicted to have risen from 0.6 million in 2007 to 4 million in 2017.[2][16]Responsible tourism became a peremptory need for Colombia because minimizes negative social, economic and environmental impacts and makes positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage.[17][18]

Travel guide Lonely Planet ranked Colombia second in its list of best countries to visit in 2017. Colombia has been celebrated for its forward-thinking vibrant culture and hospitality.[19]

Transportation

Railways

The nation's rail network links seven of the country's 10 major cities. During 2004-6, approximately 2,000 kilometers of the country's rail lines underwent refurbishment. This upgrade involved two main projects: the 1,484-kilometer line linking Bogotá to the Caribbean Coast and the 499-kilometer Pacific coastal network that links the industrial city of Cali and the surrounding coffee-growing region to the port of Buenaventura.[20]

Ports, waterways, and merchant marine

A well-developed and important form of transport for both cargo and passengers, inland waterways transport approximately 3.8 million metric tons of freight and more than 5.5 million passengers annually. Main inland waterways are the Magdalena-Cauca River system, which is navigable for 1,500 kilometers; the Atrato, which is navigable for 687 kilometers; the Orinoco system of more than five navigable rivers, which total more than 4,000 kilometers of potential navigation (mainly through Venezuela); and the Amazonas system, which has four main rivers totaling 3,000 navigable kilometers (mainly through Brazil). The government is planning an ambitious program to more fully utilize the main rivers for transport.[20]

Aviation

Colombia has well-developed air routes and an estimated total of 984 airports, 100 of which have paved runways, plus two heliports. Of the 74 main airports, 20 can accommodate jet aircraft. Two airports are more than 3,047 meters in length, nine are 2,438-3,047 meters, 39 are 1,524-2,437 meters, 38 are 914-1,523 meters, 12 are shorter than 914 meters, and 880 have unpaved runways. The government has been selling its stake in local airports in order to allow their privatization. The country has 40 regional airports, and the cities of Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Bucaramanga, Cartagena, Cúcuta, Leticia, Pereira, San Andrés, and Santa Marta have international airports. Bogotá's El Dorado International Airport handles 550 million metric tons of cargo and 22 million passengers a year, making it the largest airport in Latin America in terms of cargo and the third largest in passenger numbers.[20]

Urban transport

Urban transport systems have been developed in Bogotá, Medellín, Cali and Barranquilla. Traffic congestion in Bogotá has been greatly exacerbated by the lack of rail transport. However, this problem has been alleviated somewhat by the development of one of the world's largest and highest capacity Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Systems, known as the TransMilenio (opened 2000), and the restriction of vehicles through a daily, rotating ban on private cars depending on plate numbers. Bogotá's system consists of bus and minibus services managed by both private- and public-sector enterprises. Since 1995 Medellín has had a modern urban railway referred to as the Metro de Medellín, which also connects with the cities of Itagüí, Envigado, and Bello. A BRT line called Transmetro began operating in 2011, with a second line added in 2013. Other cities have also installed BRT systems such as Cali with a six line system (opened 2008), Barranquilla with two lines (opened 2010), Bucaramanga with one line (opened 2010), Cartagena with one line (opened 2015) and Pereira with three lines (opened 2006).[21][20]

World Heritage Sites

As of 2018, there are nine World Heritage Sites in Colombia, including six cultural sites, two natural sites and one mixed site.

Located in the north-west Colombian Amazon, Chiribiquete National Park is the largest protected area in the country. One of the defining features of the park is the presence of tepuis (the Native American word for table-top mountains), sheer-sided sandstone plateaux that dominate the forest. Over 75,000 paintings, spanning more than 20,000 years to the present, are to be seen on the walls of the 60 rock shelters around the bases of the tepuis. Believed to be linked to the worship of the jaguar, a symbol of power and fertility, these paintings depict hunting scenes, battles, dances and ceremonies. The indigenous communities, which are not directly present on the site, consider the region sacred.[22]

Encompasses six farming landscapes that use the "centennial tradition of coffee growing in small plots in the high forest and the way farmers have adapted cultivation to difficult mountain conditions." [23]